Opioid

Vanderbilt’s Carrie K. Jones and the University of Glasgow’s Andrew Tobin have received a prestigious £5 million ($6.2 million) Wellcome Trust Discovery Award to study how blocking the M5 muscarinic receptor in the brain could reduce opioid addiction while preserving pain relief. This groundbreaking international collaboration, supported by the Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery, aims to advance new treatments in the critical global health crisis of opioid use disorder. Read More

In a new study led by Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers, women who filled two or more prescriptions for opioids after childbirth faced a 46% greater risk of death than women who did not. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have developed a response score using genetic and clinical information to aid prescribing of the widely used pain medication codeine. Read More

Surgical patients are being given more opioids than they need for postsurgical pain management, raising the risk of addiction. Read More

An opioid-restrictive prescribing protocol reduced the number of postoperative opioid prescriptions and the oral morphine equivalent per prescription. Read More

Babies born after being exposed to both opioids and benzodiazepines before birth are more likely to have severe drug withdrawal, requiring medications like morphine for treatment, compared to infants exposed to opioids alone. Read More

There’s promise in specific immune system peptides—amino acid compounds that signal cells how to function. In this case, they may be affecting brain activity and, by extension, drug cravings. Read More

In areas of the country disproportionately affected by the opioid crisis, treatment programs are less likely to accept patients paying through insurance of any type or accept pregnant women, a new Vanderbilt study found. Read More

In the United States, one infant is born every 15 minutes with withdrawal symptoms after being exposed to opioids before birth, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics. Read More

Opioid users have a significantly increased risk of infections severe enough to require treatment at the hospital, such as pneumonia and meningitis, as compared to people who don’t use opioids. Read More

Kristin Archer, PhD, DPT, associate professor and vice chair of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, will serve as principal investigator at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) for a clinical trial that is examining strategies for reducing opioid use among patients with chronic pain. Read More

Renewal House and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) have launched an alliance that will expedite treatment and expand the community’s capacity to treat mothers and children most acutely affected by opioid addiction in the mid-state. Read More

Stephen W. Patrick, M.D., MPH, MS, has been chosen to receive the Nemours Child Health Services Research Award, recognizing his work surrounding neonatal abstinence syndrome, a drug withdrawal syndrome experienced by infants exposed to opioids while in utero. Read More

Most women who undergo a cesarean childbirth are prescribed more opioid (narcotic) pain medications than needed upon release from the hospital, a Vanderbilt University Medical Center study shows. Read More

Punitive approach has not been shown to be effective and may deter women from seeking help The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a statement today stating that a public health response, rather than a punitive approach, is needed to address the increasing number of pregnant women using opioids. Read More

Complications related to opioid abuse occur in 54,000 pregnancies annually in the United States, and Tennessee ranks among the top 10 states in the number of opioid-dependent pregnant women. Read More

An increasing number of newborns are being born with drug withdrawal symptoms from opioids in rural areas of the United States as compared to births in urban areas, according to a JAMA Pediatrics study. Read More

As Tennessee’s opioid epidemic escalates and the prevalence of opiate dependency in pregnancy continues to require additional resources, Vanderbilt will open another Drug Dependency Clinic at the Vanderbilt Center for Women’s Health at NorthCrest Medical Center in Springfield, Tennessee. Read More

Women may be at higher risk than men when it comes to overuse of opioid-containing painkillers, speakers warned at a research symposium at Vanderbilt University Medical Center earlier this month. Read More

The risks of taking opioids during pregnancy or to manage chronic pain, and the impact this frequently prescribed class of pain relievers has on the adolescent brain will be discussed Wednesday, July 13, during a “bedside-to-bench” symposium at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Read More